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As a political science major with a vision of working for local campaigns or running for office, Emily Hogan reaches towards her aspirations by being elected to the senate as a freshman.

An 18-year-old student originally from Trion, North Carolina, Hogan chose App State not because of her love for the university but for her ideals of how she could make improvements.

“I really valued how App State seemed to value students and student opinions. I appreciate that a lot,” Hogan said.

Hogan’s responsibilities as a freshman senator are voting on and writing bills. Hogan is on the external affairs committee, which means she deals with relations with outside government bodies and influences on App State.

Hogan is part of the Watauga Residential College, an intern for the Watauga County Democratic Party and a campus intern for D.D. Adams, candidate for the 5th Congressional District seat.

“I work to make sure students on campus are registered to vote,” Hogan said. “I work to make sure that they understand the process of voting, the difference in absentee voting and early voting and how to do those things.”

Hogan also helps lead phone banks to encourage voting and advocate for Adams and her campaign.

One of Hogan’s hopes for App State’s future is to make the Emergency Blue Light Telephones on campus handicap accessible. She also said she hopes to find causes off campus that make Boone a more accepting and comfortable place for others, such as the LGBTQ community.

Hogan said she constantly talked to others about her campaign and created a QR code as a strategy for gaining student’s votes. When a student scanned the QR code, it would direct users to the voting website.

At Polk County High School, Hogan was the founder and president of her county’s Teen Democrats club, part of her school’s environmental club and played saxophone for the school’s marching band.

“I’m the kind of person who maybe won’t do a lot of things, but things I do, I try to do 100 percent,” Hogan said. “With Teen Democrats, I really put an effort into doing the best I could.”

Teen Democrats worked to elect candidates who spread the democratic message with the hopes of all students feeling engaged in politics and government. Hogan said even if Democrats’ voices weren’t being amplified, their goal was to get young people’s voices heard.

“She’s pretty much the hardest working and most dedicated person I know, I’d say. I respect her a lot,” Evan McCarthy, Hogan’s friend since their freshman year of high school and freshman geology major at App State, said.

Hogan said her mission in all her political endeavors is to achieve awareness and shine light onto the voices and opinions of young people.

“I was really passionate about amplifying young people’s voices. Even if someone disagreed with me, the fact that their voice was being heard and that they were young was really important to me,” Hogan said. “Personally that was my message, but I was also really passionate about getting Democrats’ voices amplified.”

Before coming to App State, Hogan was the Polk County ambassador and the political director for David Wilson Brown, candidate for U.S. House District 10. As ambassador, she served as the communicator between the campaign team and the local democratic party. As political director, she was responsible for getting endorsements and being part of Brown’s speech writing team.

“I’m really passionate about local politics because I think that’s what affects the most people,” Hogan said. “There’s a saying that all politics are local, and I think that’s extremely true, because it doesn’t really matter necessarily who’s in the oval office if your local government isn’t fighting to represent you, because it all starts locally and then builds to the next level.”

Hogan will serve as freshman senator with four other freshmen, Karolyn Martin, Jeremy Doblin, Aiyana Willoughby and Tyler Gacek.

“She’s insanely dedicated to what she does, no matter what she does. If she starts doing something, she will finish it and work harder than anyone else at it than I know,” McCarthy said.